Comment Re:That's funny.... (Score 1) 533
Nope, no trolling, honest belief. No, they don't release or assist in methane capture, that's an entirely different issue. My point was that they do nothing - they don't leak carbon into the atmosphere, they just sit there.
With regard to your second point, you've hit the nail on the head - recycling and reusing plastics happens (in part) because the raw material is worth more as liquid fuel, which is far more harmful to the environment. In an ideal world we'd invest heavily in nuclear fission/fusion and electric/hydrogen vehicles, then pump polymerising agents into all of the remaining oil fields to prevent the oil being burned. Oil burning is far more harmful to the environment than plastic bags are - plastics are the green use for oil in the long run and we should be using as much as possible as that's the only way to prevent oil being burned.
That's not technically correct of course - leaving the oil in the ground in the first place is the ideal environmental solution, but that's never going to happen in a world where money is more important than any other consideration. Plasticising oil comes second though.
With regard to your second point, you've hit the nail on the head - recycling and reusing plastics happens (in part) because the raw material is worth more as liquid fuel, which is far more harmful to the environment. In an ideal world we'd invest heavily in nuclear fission/fusion and electric/hydrogen vehicles, then pump polymerising agents into all of the remaining oil fields to prevent the oil being burned. Oil burning is far more harmful to the environment than plastic bags are - plastics are the green use for oil in the long run and we should be using as much as possible as that's the only way to prevent oil being burned.
That's not technically correct of course - leaving the oil in the ground in the first place is the ideal environmental solution, but that's never going to happen in a world where money is more important than any other consideration. Plasticising oil comes second though.